Banks Use Your Deposits To Loan Money To Fossil-Fuel, Emissions-Heavy Firms - Sl...

Banks Use Your Deposits To Loan Money To Fossil-Fuel, Emissions-Heavy Firms

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  No gas companies, no military contractors, etc etc.
  
  Why not? That's where the big money is.

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    You deposit your money in a bank, they lend it out. You do not have the discretion of where they lend it out to, unless you want to pay for the security and convenience of accessing your money anywhere anytime. The bank gets to make those decisions in ways they think is most profitable for them. Thats how banking systems work. By forcing banks to consider anything other than their income, you are hindering their ability to do their work and do it well. What are you willing to give up in exchange? Your conve
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      infinit money!

      get loan, deposit money in rrsp gic, bank lends the lended money out to someone else, repeat. all of a sudden $1 becomes 300 million. what a great system we have.

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      I think you just highlighted the difference between a bank and credit union. A CU is an association of members who have more say than a banking institution. Personally I just try to avoid banks putting money into Monopoly Money aka crypto. Im close to squirelling away 1yr income (Net) just incase something bad happens that leaves me without work. Most reports say people are 2 paychecks from living on the street.

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    Because the point of the experiment would be to see if politically-based banking works. There are various calls for disinvestment in this and that. OK, so, use a financial institution that doesn't invest in those things you don't like. That only invests in the things and causes you support. Let's see if such a model is actually viable. I think with enough dedicated members using those services it could be, if they were willing, on principle, to pay some higher prices for certain services. There are definite

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    I bank with USAA Federal Savings Bank and Navy Federal Credit Union. I certainly HOPE that they're investing my money in fossil fuel and military businesses.

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  It has already been tried and has completely failed every time. Also, people have tried investing only in "green" companies but it yields significantly lower returns.

  And **NONE** of them became billionaires by investing in "green" businesses.

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    AND they don't seem to be 'green' at all, they merely use words very skillfully.

    Since they all seem to fly everywhere on private jets, I question their green credentials.

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  They already exist, as a simple Google search would have shown you. Some are relatively new. Some have been around for quite a while.

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    They exist on mostly small scales, or are tied to a specific organization. Amalgamated Bank, for example, is specifically to serve Unions and Union agendas. It's limited in scope. Beneficial and Sunrise Banks, are small, local banks without a lot of capital (on a national scale). I'm talking about a big, national-scale bank/CU operating on leftist political principles. A progressive Capital One, if you will. Well funded, widely available coast to coast, operating on a set of political principles. That is wh

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• by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @01:46PM (#64099409)

  A single bank can make money this way because the other people's money it sloshes around would be subsidized by the rest of the economy. Just like my little town can preen about buying green electricity while the grid gets propped up by gas burning plants, and my neighbors can show off their teslas and rivians but have their driveways plowed by diesel trucks and their home repairs done by guys who show up 20yo f150s.

  The problem of ideologically motivated central planning isn't that a one-off is infeasible. It's that it won't work if everyone tries to do it at the same time. This is called the fallacy of composition. If I stand up in theater to get a better view, it does not follow that everyone will get a better view if everyone stands up.

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    This is a common fallacy. If you buy only renewable energy, it doesn't mean someone else gets fossil energy to make up for it, or that a fossil plant works harder to "prop up the grid". It means that more money goes into developing even more renewable energy.

    The UK just had a record breaking day of wind power. The grid didn't collapse or become unstable. Fossil fuels were directly displaced. Energy was cheap for everyone.

• Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)

  by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday December 22, 2023 @02:20PM (#64099523)

  It would be an interesting experiment to see how a bank operating on environmental and left-wing political policies fared.

  It's already been done.

  There are many "green" and ESG investment funds.

  The answer is... some do better, some do worse, and they all fluctuate.

  One advantage is they go up on bad news about the climate and rising oil prices while the market as a whole goes down. So they are a good bet for pessimists and contrarians.

  Here are two stories. Take your pick:

  Yes, investing in ESG pays off [hbr.org]

  Green investing is underperforming [cnbc.com]

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  It's a time honored tradition amongst certain types of people to say one thing, while doing another (all the while scolding the hoipolloi for it). It's rather a bit like pushing for open borders elsewhere, but instituting virtual apartheid at home.
  But on balance, those green initiatives tend to lose money without government subsidies and favorable regulations (which is a totally different conversation)

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  Sounds more like a credit union and less like a bank